15.30 Wed 8 June: No change... we're still waiting... but we haven't given up.

08.30 Thurs 9 June: ditto... but all is not lost yet. I checked with the dates from a friend who had eggs from my flock to hatch, they were due on a Tuesday and actually hatched on the following Friday.

Sunday 12 June: Sadly none of the eggs hatched - which was very disappointing, but these things happen.

BUT – there are rumours that PPPHatch II is scheduled, so keep an eye on the blog over the next few weeks – you'll be the first to know ;-)

Ooh how exciting - Babbs's are now four weeks old almost, and Gladys's lot hatch on Friday evening. It's generally bang on 21 days, to the hour sometimes, but in some years everybody suffers a late hatch. My record is 26 days! I find it's best to go out on hatch day to prevent pestering the hen. Remember to gently remove any half shells you see in case another pipping egg gets stuck in it. Good luck!

As you can see - nature has her own timetable and the outcome is never guarnateed. It's a good life lesson.

We'll see what happens today and tomorrow before we give up hope of chicks this time.

Thank you for following progress and thank you for the excellent tips Wendy.

Jason - welcome to PPPs, in answer to your questions:Not all hens will want to go broody, most hybrids don't (that's why I'm borrowing a hen to do the task). Some pure breeds spend most of the summer 'being broody', Silkies, Cochins and Pekins (bantam sized Cochins) are notorious for this!If you don't want them to sit and try to hatch chicks, you need to try the break them out of broodiness. I recommend that you read tips about this from Terry: http://tinyurl.com/6zjbozuand Fiona: http://tinyurl.com/66oll3d

Do you have a candling torch? Let me know if you'd like to borrow mine and I'll post it up to you. They're very useful if you have a late hatch as you can sneak the eggs out at night, check them quickly and throw away any bad ones.

I love reading all the comments (except for spam and advertising which I will delete) and I'll reply here in the comments under each blog post, it may take a few days if I'm busy.You don't need to have a blog to leave a comment, you can select the name/URL option and fill in just your name instead of a blog link.